


Clown's Face

by Danilla



Category: IT (2017), IT - Stephen King
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Fluff and Angst, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-12
Updated: 2018-02-12
Packaged: 2019-03-17 11:28:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,739
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13658052
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Danilla/pseuds/Danilla
Summary: Pennywise was its favorite body, not just because of how easily it could attract children, but because of the person it reminded it of.





	Clown's Face

Pennywise, the dancing clown, was its favorite body. It liked everything about this: it liked that its prey felt comfortable near it; it liked that it could always smile and still look friendly but also could look very intimidating if it wanted to; it specially liked that behind the thing that should be just makeup, there was a face. The face of a dead man. _Robert Gray_.

It didn't always shapeshifted to the clown, sometimes it just used the pure face of the man it one day met. It couldn't quite understand why, but somehow, it just felt nice to see this face clean again. The face of this man.

Hours were spent into looking at that features, tracing every inch with its own fingers. Sometimes, it would just brush it off and return to Pennywise, but mostly, it would stay paralysed thinking.

The man that it now used the face lived and died a long time ago and had a job at the circus. He was Pennywise, the dancing clown. And at the time, it didn't like the presence of the circus company in Derry — a place that couldn't even be called city yet, with a really small population — nor it liked the always smiling clowns that worked there. It didn't think it ever had contact with such creatures before, humans pretending to be something they were not.

Soon, it realised how easily the circus could attract humans, not only grown ups, but lots and lots of children.

Of all those clowns who worked there, there was one in special that kept its attention. He was the one the kids loved the most. The tallest of them, redhead, and cherry red painting on the lips that followed a line untill above his eyes.

It had decided it wanted to make this one float. It was one night when the clown was sat outside alone that it decided to attack, it first took a time to feel what was the thing that man feared the most, and in the end, it turned itself into a dog to approach him. It growled at the clown and immediately heard the acceleration in his breathing.

"Hey there, buddy." The man managed to say with shaken voice. "Calm down!" He tried, starting to slowly gain distance.

It threatened to attack, growling one more time, before it could see almost magic happen, the horrified clown stopped pacing back saying low and in one breath "dogs can feel your fear, dumbass." and changing completely the way he was acting.

"Are you lost, doggie?" Big smile on his face, almost predator. "Pennywise will give you a balloon." And he gave a playful step toward it.

It could still smell the fear in the clown, but it found itself a little taken aback by the sudden change.

"I like the red balloon better, don't you, doggie?" A loud laugh scaped from the clown's lips and that was the time it walked away.

It didn't even want to think why it felt intimidated.

____________

  
The following night, it decided it liked Pennywise and wanted to be him, so it turned into the tall clown that made it leave the night before. It decided to pay another visit to the man, this time, sneaking into his tent.

"Time to float, Bobby boy!" It said, using the tone it heard the man talk last night.

The man wasn't dressed as Pennywise, it noticed, and he was probably too wasted for this shit. He was surrounded by empty alcoholics bottles and had one half full on hands.

"Pennywise!" The man smiled to it, resting the bottle on a small table. "I'm feeling like shit right now." The excited tone from seconds ago, gone.

It didn't really know how to react, so it smiled wildly, the intimidating way it saw last night. The smile didn't seem to work, since the man smiled sadly in return and started walking in its direction.

"Come here, lay down with me." The man asked, already pulling it down by its wrist, so it was now sat on the floor.

The man adjusted himself putting his head in its long legs, his hands still in its wrist and now starting to play with its fingers.

In a last effort, it turned its head into a dog's head, growling near the man's face. Bob gasped, closed his eyes and it could feel the man's hands hold tighter.

"I am really in a dark place, am I not? I don't know if I can keep going any further..." Was the last thing the man said, after it could realize the man slept.

It left the tent as soon as it could get rid of the man's grip on its hand.

____________

  
It ignored that man for a few days so it could fill its belly with easier preys, like all those children that were so easily attracted by its new favorite body, Pennywise.

When it went back after Bob, it found the man once again in the same place outside alone, also dressed as Pennywise, smelling nothing but sadness. The man stared at it with disbelief before murmuring a soft "oh shit" and hanging his mouth open.

"What's the matter, Bobby boy?" Fake worry on its face.

"Was it you the other night?" Robert hesitated. "You're dressed as me."

"Don't you like it, Bob?" It started walking in his direction.

The man decided to use the clown magic again, mirroring its smile and walking in its direction as well.

"You think you're better than me?" The man asked in a high pitched voice, making a face as he pitied it. It stopped smiling.

"I'll make you float!" It growled and the man's smile opened even more.

"Would you like some popcorn, Penny? They _pop_!" The man asked before there was silence between them, untill it could finally smile again and vanish.

____________

  
The next time it went after Robert Gray, it wasn't with the intention of making the man float, it was pure curiosity on why a human surrounded by laughs smelled so sad. It went as Pennywise for two reasons, Bob already knew it and it liked the body.

The man was again outside, this time just as Robert Gray. This time, the man looked like he was expecting it to appear, it also noted his eyes big and red as if he had been crying a whole day. And maybe he had.

Bob got up quickly from one of the boxes he was sat and started walking in its direction. Never on its life it had felt so unprepared as when the man pulled it into a tight hug.

"I know you don't know me, but... Can you stay with me for a bit?" The man asked reluctantly.

It didn't really know what to do, so it just nodded.

Bob pulled away from the hug and started to lead the way to his tent.

"I'm Robert Gray, but I think you already know that. You keep calling me Bobby." The man said as he laid on his bed and patted his side so it could do the same thing. It did, and now they were laying face to face.

"You really look like me." He ran his hand through its cheeks and hair. "Sorry to drag you. I just needed someone... What's your name?"

"I'm Pennywise." It said and shook his head, in a clownly way.

"Of course you are." The man smiled, still caressing its face. "I don't usually do that, it's just that I'm not used to be alone." A soft laugh. "She was the one who brought me to the circus, and now she abandoned me."

It could do nothing but stare. The man bit his lips and seemed to be considering before he could get closer and press his lips to its. He broke the small kiss as fast as he started.

"You can stay the night if you want." Bob said as he buried his face in the clown's outfit.

After the man slept, it took whole thirty minutes for it to leave.

____________

  
Their next encounter happened by accident. It didn't bother to shift into other thing but the clown's body, Pennywise. Bob arrived just in time to see it giving an inhuman bite in some little boy's leg and riping it off, chewing it and finally swallowing. The child falled unconscious at this point and Robert was too paralysed to do anything. He had seen that boy a few nights before, that boy had hugged him, _hugged Pennywise_ , and told him he loved him.

It noticed him after a time, and did nothing but smile with its all bloody mouth and wave to him. Robert felt sick, but didn't walk away, instead, he started to walk toward the monster. Each step he gave he thought he was going to fall, his knees bending too much more than necessary.

It kept his smile and his guards up, in case that the human tried something, but once again, the man just pulled it in a tight hug, and it could feel when the man started crying.

"If you need, you can eat me too." Bob said and started shaking. "I'll let you."

It didn't know how it felt, but it didn't like it, so it decided to just disappear and let the man on his own, crying by the side of a child with just one leg.

____________

  
They didn't meet again.

The next time it tried to find the man, people from the circus were starting to dismount the main tent. It looked around, trying to found Robert, but he was nowhere to be found. It tried looking in the man's tent, and that was the place it found him. Dressed as Pennywise, but with no makeup. Sat on the corner of the place with a sharp knife on his hand. Eyes closed, wrists open with a lot of dry blood around.

It took a long look into the man before getting closer and then on its knees and iniciating the hug for the first time. It didn't last before it walked away, back to the sewers, leaving the body behind.

  
It was already used to be Pennywise, but it never quite understood why was it everytime it introduced itself as Robert Gray or used the man's face he felt something weird, almost what he could smell on some humans: sadness.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm really sorry if it was a little confusing, but I hope y'all could understand what I tried to do!  
> I was kinda bothered because I never found anything about them, so I decided to write because they have so much potential aksjakj
> 
> If someone arrived here, thanks for reading ❤


End file.
